From The San Francisco Examiner:

Last week, one or more Occupy Oakland protesters smashed the windows of a Wells Fargo branch.

This week, the group’s general assembly agreed — in a near-unanimous vote Monday — to temporarily place $20,000 of the group’s money in an account at the country’s fourth-largest bank holding company, Wells Fargo Bank.

Whether the decision was an abandonment of the movement’s opposition to big banks or an ominous affirmation of the hold that big banks have on Americans, Twitter was ablaze with outrage last night, as news spread about the 162-8 vote, from which 16 people abstained.

“I am so disgusted right now. the hypocrisy of it all is just amazing,” wrote @GiveMeThatJuice.

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In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Nov. 8th, Attorney General Eric Holder continued to claim he knew nothing about guns being walked into Mexico until after the fact, and that he knew nothing about operation Fast and Furious until earlier this year. With little worry that he had given a completely different answer to the House Oversight Committee on May 3rd, a non-repentant Holder told the Senators:

I first learned about the tactics and the phrase “Operation Fast and Furious” at the beginning of this year — I think when it became a matter of all of this public controversy. In my testimony before the House Committee, I did say “a few weeks.” I probably could have said “a couple of months.” I don’t think that what I said in terms of using the term “a few weeks” was inaccurate, based on what happened.

Come on Mr. Holder, this is getting ridiculous.

What makes it worse is that neither timeline is honest: In other words, he neither found out about it a few weeks ago or earlier this year. Rather, he was briefed on Fast and Furious in mid-summer 2010 and three months later was sent memos which dealt with specifically with gun walking into Mexico.

And who can forget Holder’s own speech in Mexico on April 2, 2009, wherein he boasted of operation Gunrunner:

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels.  My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.  DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail. (emphasis mine)

By the way, what does the name “Gunrunner” signify if not the intention to run (or walk) guns?

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St. Louis City Mayor Francis Slay is receiving more complaints about the Occupiers in the city’s downtown Keiner Plaza area–not just from city boosters concerned about the city’s image, but tea party groups upset over the preferential treatment the city gave the Occupiers when it fleeced the tea party for use of the same space. Slay attempted to remedy that Tuesday by presenting the Occupiers with the choice of meeting a few requirements or eviction. Occupy members of Anonymous replied by hacking the Mayor’s website and making threats.

Apparently giving the Occupiers the equal treatment given to other groups–not even, they were offered a free permit!–is so offensive that they felt the need to respond this way.

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Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

Blame Bush. It has been almost three years since President Obama took office, yet he still blames Bush for the bad economy. Now the Obama administration is following the same strategy to get out of the “Fast and Furious” mess.

“Fast and Furious,” also called the “Gunwalker” case, involves the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) agents ordering American gun dealers to sell guns to obvious Mexican drug gang members during 2009 and 2010. This was done over the objections of the gun dealers.

Both Fox News and the Washington Post started covering this scandal in early February this year. It may be excusable that Attorney General Eric Holder did not read the press reports, but, if we are to believe his congressional testimony Tuesday, he and his staff also neglected to pay attention to the 100 or so page “weekly reports” summarizing activity in the Justice Department.

Those reports began mentioning the operation as long ago as July 2010. When Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee in May this year he claimed: “I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Holder reiterated again Tuesday that he simply didn’t have the time to read even the summaries. Neither did his staff.

Holder had few options Tuesday.

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Today, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

Former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) struggles to explain why the same Ohio voters who rejected public sector labor reforms also rejected ObamaCare’s individual mandate:

Could it be that ObamaCare is unpopular even among voters who support public sector unions?

Or is it that Ohio voters make logical choices when not bombarded by millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of union propaganda? (more…)

Though the Wisconsin union circus produced widespread union-reform fatigue, you might be wondering what went wrong with Issue 2 in Ohio. As an Ohio conservative who happened to start researching government unions a few months before the General Assembly tackled reform, here’s my educated guess!

Executive summary: The unions spent several boatloads on dishonest class warfare, and Ohio voters failed to see through it.

First, some theories I don’t subscribe to. With the future of Issue 2 looking bleak leading up to Tuesday, there have been rumblings that Governor Kasich and/or the Ohio Republican Party backed away from Issue 2 for fear of getting egg on their faces. I’ve seen no indication this is true.

A fairer guess is that including police and firefighters doomed Senate Bill 5; I hesitate to jump to this conclusion, if for no other reason than I advised excluding police and firefighters. It’s worth noting that police and firefighters figured heavily into the union smear campaign, but the bill’s reforms would have been assailed by unions of all stripes regardless of who was affected.

Perhaps the worst explanation – popular with that special brand of Ohioan whose motto is, “I’m a lifelong Republican, but” – insists Senate Bill 5 was an overreach. Ohio’s existing government union law isn’t a little broken; it’s completely broken. Republicans attempted to reform the Democrats’ 1983 bill in a single shot rather than spend the next 3 years fighting with unions. Blaming Issue 2’s defeat on this calculation misses the bigger picture.

What does the bigger picture look like?

Out-of-state union donations, grossly understated by Ohio media, far exceeded the “Yes on 2″ campaign’s entire budget. The Ohio Education Association (OEA), a despicable band of hypocrites whose average pay in 2010 was more than $95,000, took an extra $54 from every member to kill Senate Bill 5. OEA alone dumped more than $5.8 million into “We Are Ohio.”

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Pundits who once pronounced Republican voters satisfied with the field of presidential contenders may have spoken too soon.

Herman Cain’s difficulties in handling a flurry of sexual harassment accusations–albeit launched by an overzealous, unfair mainstream media–have shaken confidence in his candidacy. Gov. Mitt Romney’s increasingly bold policy pronouncements may be too little, too late to convince the conservative base.

Gov. Rick Perry seems to have faded, and Newt Gingrich’s recent rise may not be big enough to establish him as the latest alternative to Romney. The other candidates are still trying to break into double digits, but aside from Ron Paul–whose isolationist foreign policy makes him unelectable–none has succeeded.

That has some analysts wondering if a new candidate might yet enter the race–and if so, who that would be.

Source: The Public Interest - ABC 9 WTVC

Let’s consider the criteria that a late entrant would have to meet. (more…)

We’ve always assumed that public schools exist, first and foremost, to benefit the students of a community. But that’s clearly not the case in Chicago. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been pushing the idea of adding 90 minutes to the school day to improve learning for children in the city’s deeply troubled school district. He has managed to convince teachers in 13 schools to accept the longer day in exchange for cash bonuses, but the radical Chicago Teachers Union doesn’t like this idea. Union President Karen Lewis and her comrades have been going around trying to convince teachers to reject the proposal, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune.

When that strategy didn’t work, the union complained to its friends at the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. In a quick decision, the board ruled 5-0 that the city was violating labor law by “luring teachers with inducements and hampering the efforts of union representatives… Because of this irreparable harm, it is necessary to immediately restore the status quo,” the board wrote in its ruling. The board will not seek to have the longer days cancelled in the 13 schools, but it has asked the Illinois attorney general to go to court to seek an injunction to prevent more schools from extending the school day.

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The Herman Cain campaign has scheduled a press conference today at 5pm EST. Will he be able to address the increasing number of questions about his past behavior. If he can answer the allegations, his campaign will continue to gather strength. If not, well, politics is a tough business.

Stay tuned.

A number of people have contacted me voicing their concern that my coming out against Mitt Romney by signing onto the Not Mitt Romney pledge isn’t helpful. Their argument is that we must ensure that Obama is not re-elected. I agree. America is at a serious crossroads.

If Mitt Romney nabs the nomination as Republican candidate for President of the United States, I will support him with every breath of my body. That said, Obama Lite is not the answer. Obama Lite will not defeat Obama. In the lead-up to the primaries, we should fight for a candidate with the most principled values. Political will and courage is what we are in dire need of.

John Bolton was my candidate. He didn’t run.

Rudolph Giuliani was next in line for me. He didn’t run.

Sarah Palin had my vote. She didn’t run.

Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann are next.

Rick Perry? Please. I questioned his very bad judgment when I exposed his entire Islamic curriculum, dawah and proselytizing, to Texas school children. To this day he has never come clean about that. And the fact that he was Al Gore’s manager does not bode well.

Perry is a snake. Watch him. He is creepy. And his freak show speech in New Hampshire recently belonged in a Roger Corman film. (more…)

From Reuters:

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday expressed regret over a botched operation meant to track guns smuggled to Mexican drug cartels and said his department misinformed Congress about it.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley slammed Holder and the Justice Department for inaccurately telling lawmakers in a February letter that the agency did everything possible to try to stop weapons bought illegally from being sent to Mexico.

“In the nine months since then, mounting evidence has put the lie to that claim,” Grassley said to Holder at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “Documents contradicting the department’s denials came to light.”

Grassley said the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, Lanny Breuer, who is a close Holder friend, failed to correct the record for months even though he knew it was inaccurate to say the agency had done everything it could. (more…)

As lawyers say, lets stipulate that the political system is broken. We have, in the past, railed against special tax incentives for business that are often outmoded, ill conceived, and are generally ineffective. These, more often than not, merely distort the marketplace at great expense to the taxpayer and the American consumer. Elected officials in Washington have become so locked into doctrinaire philosophical positions that compromise has eluded their reach, and common sense has become as rare as the two-dollar bill. Democrats and the left point to growing gaps between the middle class and those they refer to as millionaires and billionaires (people who earn over $250,000 per annum) and who they say must pay their “fair share” in taxes.

And while it is widely acknowledged that the top 5% of earners pay over 50 percent of federal taxes, there has been a growing concentration of wealth within that top 5% of income earners during the last 20 years. Politicians love to define issues in a debate to gain popular advantage. The country is in desperate need of economic growth, which the Obama Administration has failed effectively to address. So, the White House has made increased taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” the cornerstone of their 2012 election strategy. Excessive spending, the growth of the federal deficit and the accumulated debt of the country threaten to snuff out economic growth in America just as it surely is doing in Europe. When Barack Obama became President, the federal debt was slightly over $10 trillion dollars. It has grown to more than $14 trillion dollars under his watch. If spending is not reined in, and/or revenues do not increase, servicing the nation’s debt will crowd out vital resources for private investment (where new jobs are created).

Elected officials are not leading; they talk past one another. The way out of this mess might be in changing the vocabulary of the debate so both sides can claim a victory. The Democrats could hoist the GOP on their own petard by shifting the debate away from tax increases, to cutting corporate entitlements and benefits. Note that the right complains about spending only when the beneficiaries are those who rely on government to help with retirement payments, medical benefits, or to finance their children’s education. Cutting specified corporate entitlements that really provide no economic benefit to the country would be easier for conservatives to swallow than increasing tax rates, which would retard economic growth.

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Specifically, on Senate Joint Resolution (S.J.Res. 6) – the vote to overturn the Obama Administration Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Net Neutrality Internet power grab.

If you live in Massachusetts – please call/email/fax the Senator and let him know he’d be very wrong to do so.

And that he next year needs Conservatives and Republicans – from Massachusetts and around the nation – if he has any hope to keep his seat.

• Scott Brown – Massachusetts
  • Phone: (202) 224-4543
  • Fax: (202) 228-2646
  • Email: Here

From #OccupyWallSt:

On November 23rd, the Congressional Deficit Reduction Super-Committee will meet to decide on whether or not to keep Obama’s extension to the Bush tax-cuts – which only benefit the richest 1% of Americans in any kind of significant way. Luckily, a group of OWS’ers are embarking on a two-week march from Liberty Plaza to the Whitehouse to let the committee know what the 99% think about these cuts. Join the march to make sure these tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans are allowed to die!

More information:

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WASHINGTON (AP) – A conservative-leaning panel of federal appellate judges on Tuesday upheld President Barack Obama’s health care law as constitutional, helping set up a Supreme Court fight.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the law. The court agreed to dismiss a Christian legal group’s lawsuit claiming the requirement that all Americans get health insurance is unconstitutional and violates religious freedom.

The requirement has been the subject of several lawsuits, with some judges across the country ruling it unconstitutional and others upholding the law. That means the Supreme Court is sure to decide the fate of Obama’s signature law. The high court is expected to decide soon, perhaps within days, whether to accept appeals from some of those earlier rulings.

The suit in Washington was brought by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. It claimed that the insurance mandate violates the religious freedom of those who choose not to have insurance because they rely on God to protect them from harm. But the court ruled that although the requirement is an encroachment on individual liberty, Congress had the power to pass it to ensure that all Americans can have health care coverage. (more…)

You’ve gotta feel sorry for Jesse Jackson; his time is so far gone, people don’t even remember when his time was. He reminds me a little of Willie Mays playing for the Mets in 1973–the best all-round baseball player who ever graced a baseball diamond, looking like a minor league-er, an all-time great who hung around one season too long.

Jackson is a civil rights leader desperately looking for a following to reclaim the good old days, but in his feebleness, he lives in yesterday and doesn’t quite “get” today, nor does he realize he should have hung it up after he threatened Obama’s private parts during the 2008 campaign.

Over the weekend, this shell of a leader went to help the Occupy Atlanta protest and explained his presence by slandering his friend, mentor, and the man whose dying blood he smeared all over his sweater, the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

About 60 people gathered around Jackson as he told them their movement was an extension of the last movement organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Poor People’s Movement.

“It’s not the size of the crowd, it’s the substance of the discussion,” that is important, he told them.

In an interview, Jackson said the protesters were voicing dissatisfaction with banks, with government policies that favor the rich, with Washington gridlock and lack of action to help average Americans.

“This is the cup running over,” he said. “People can’t take it anymore.”

A extension of  Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.??? Give me a break!! (more…)

The world lost a great champion last night, Smokin’ Joe Frazier is sparring with the angels, now.

Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight champion whose furious and intensely personal fights with a taunting Muhammad Ali endure as an epic rivalry in boxing history, died Monday night. He was 67.

The latest allegation has Herman Cain trying to score a date with a young woman and stiffing her girlfriends for $800 worth of wine, instead. I knew if I hung in there I’d find something to like about him, eventually. An aging rock star would kill for this rep.

Cain exhibited no inappropriate sexual behavior during the dinner, though he did order two $400 bottles of wine and stuck the women with the bill, she said. The next time the women heard from Cain was Christmas, when he sent them his gospel CD.

At least he wouldn’t let Europe stick us with the bill for this, as if we’re actually in better shape.

France cuts frantically as Italy nears debt spiral — France has unveiled the toughest austerity measures since World War Two despite the looming danger of a double-dip recession, vowing to slash borrowing by €65bn over the next five years in a last-ditch effort to save the country’s AAA rating.

Oh, look, a G20 economic conference that was almost as good as open mic night at the UN.

President Obama and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, were reportedly caught in a candid moment expressing their exasperation with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu – with the French president referring to him as a “liar”.

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